So oil stockpiles are at record levels, why isn't gas at a lower price.

A strong dollar?  Greedy oil companies?

Production levels are near records too.

more...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-price-recovers-slightly-ahead-of-data-1426064077

I thought it was because our refineries went out on strike. Kept the supply of actual fuel low.

Rockets and feathers.

Energy divestment: http://m.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31872459

Perhaps if the damn universities invested in energy research instead of sitting on their lazy behinds simply investing in energy stocks there would be a breakthrough that cures their growing concern for the environment.

*****CHUCKLE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BRv9wGf5pk

There's plenty of R&D in clean energy. The government is simply not interested in stopping the permanent subsidies to coal, O&G, natural gas, etc. so that renewables can succeed without the production tax credit, and since traditional energy sources and renewables are in competition, they are also not interested in providing permanent subsidies to clean energy sources.

Bottom line: look at who the shot-callers are.... root cause = greed.

But Riceme renewable energy receives the lions share of subsidies for the amount of energy they produce...

**************************************************************

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies

On March 13, 2013, Terry M. Dinan, senior advisor at the Congressional Budget Office, testified before the Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in the U.S. House of Representatives that federal energy tax subsidies would cost $16.4 billion that fiscal year, broken down as follows:
1.Renewable energy: $7.3 billion (45 percent)
2.Energy efficiency: $4.8 billion (29 percent)
3.Fossil fuels: $3.2 billion (20 percent)
4.Nuclear energy: $1.1 billion (7 percent)

In addition, Dinan testified that the U.S. Department of Energy would spend an additional $3.4 billion on financial Support for energy technologies and energy efficiency, broken down as follows:
1.Energy efficiency and renewable energy: $1.7 billion (51 percent)
2.Nuclear energy: $0.7 billion (22 percent)
3.Fossil energy research & development: $0.5 billion (15 percent)
4.Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy: $0.3 billion (8 percent)
5.Electricity delivery and energy reliability: $0.1 billion (4 percent)[19]

***********************************************************

I think a new line of thinking or energy research is in order. Like investing into fusion power, antimatter, or zero point energy (Casimir effect), might be a better use of our energy funds.

*****CHUCKLE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFsTr0kGAqU

For starters, I am against all government subsidies, so this discussion is all academic. But you are incorrect. You missed something from your own source:

Quote :

A 2011 study by the consulting firm Management Information Services, Inc. (MISI)[20] estimated the total historical federal subsidies for various energy sources over the years 1950–2010. The study found that oil, natural gas, and coal received $369 billion, $121 billion, and $104 billion (2010 dollars), respectively, or 70% of total energy subsidies over that period. Oil, natural gas, and coal benefited most from percentage depletion allowances and other tax-based subsidies, but oil also benefited heavily from regulatory subsidies such as exemptions from price controls and higher-than-average rates of return allowed on oil pipelines. The MISI report found that non-hydro renewable energy (primarily wind and solar) benefited from $74 billion in federal subsidies, or 9% of the total, largely in the form of tax policy and direct federal expenditures on research and development (R&D). Nuclear power benefited from $73 billion in federal subsidies, 9% of the total, largely in the form of R&D, while hydro power received $90 billion in federal subsidies, 12% of the total.

Also, see below. This is not even close to being a remotely complete listing of the PERMANENT GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES ENJOYED BY FOSSIL FUELS:

Quote :

Mr. Romney, let’s be honest about subsidies to renewable energy

Wally Lafferty
August 19, 2012

A note to my readers: I have received many responses to the letter below, and I wanted to take the opportunity to clarify and correct a couple of points. I appreciate the input from my readers and I believe this letter has been made stronger as a result of the input. Please link this letter to as many websites, Twitter and Facebook pages as you can as it is crucial to get the word out prior to the upcoming election. Feel free to use this information, but remember to credit the Environmental Law Institute as the original source for the data. What follows is my open letter to Governor Mitt Romney’s campaign. I hope enough people link to it that the campaign and the news media will have to address it. Please get the word out as quickly as possible. -Wally

Dear Mr. Romney,

A lot of attention was given to you by the media when you declared you would allow the Production Tax Credit for wind energy to expire at the end of the year. Your campaign went further to claim that you will “end the stimulus boondoggles, and create a level playing field on which all sources of energy can compete on their merits.”

If you truly wish to create a level playing field for all sources of energy, please tell us what you intend to do about tax credits — those that you call stimulus boondoggles — that currently exist for coal, oil and gas. Many of these tax incentives have existed for decades while the fossil fuel-based industry continues to set new records for multi-billion dollar profitability year after year. What is your position on the fact that the vast majority of federal subsidies for fossil fuels and Ethanol were spent to support energy sources that emit high levels of greenhouse gases when used as fuel?

How will you reconcile the fact that the federal government has historically provided, and continues to provide, substantially larger subsidies to fossil fuels than to renewables while fossil fuels produce multi-billion dollar profits? Fossil fuels are a mature, well-developed industry that has enjoyed government support since its inception over 100 years ago, totaling approximately $72 billion between 2002 and 2008. During the same period, renewable fuels, which are a relatively young and undeveloped industry, totaled merely $29 billion and 80% of that went to Ethanol subsidies.

How will you address the fact that the Production Tax Credit for wind energy repeatedly approaches expiration on a regular basis unless Congress and the President decide to extend it, throwing costly uncertainty into the renewable energy business model; while the largest subsidies to fossil fuels have been written into the U.S. Tax Code as permanent provisions? It appears that you like to criticize special tax credits for wind and solar and pretend that the tax incentives to fossil fuels don’t exist. Since powerful lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry have gotten their incentives permanently added to the tax code, you seem to believe that they aren’t tax incentives any longer but just ordinary adjustments to corporate balance sheets.

Since so many Americans are spending a lot of time discussing the upcoming expiration of the PTC, can you please address your plans for…

o             the Credit for Production of Nonconventional Fuels - IRC Section 45K. This permanent tax provision provides a lower tax rate for companies who produce certain fossil fuels.

o             the Oil and Gas Exploration & Development Expense – IRC Section 617. Also known as Intangible Drilling Costs (IDC). This tax provision allows fossil fuel companies to deduct the cost of wages, machinery, or unsalvageable materials. The term “unsalvageable materials” is left ambiguous so it can be applied to a broad range of intangible costs.

o             the Oil and Gas Excess Percentage over Cost Depletion – IRC Section 613. This permanent provision in the tax code allows independent producers and royalty owners to deduct 15% of gross income earned from oil, gas and oil shale deposits. The nature of this tax incentive is nearly equivalent to the wind energy PTC, except that this one has been made a permanent provision in the tax code for fossil fuels.

o             Coal Royalty Payments as Capital Gains – IRC Section 631(c). This permanent provision allows income from the sale of coal under royalty contract to be treated as a capital gain rather than ordinary taxable income, thereby reducing the tax liability for qualifying individuals. Would you please explain who these qualifying individuals are, and why they deserve this special treatment when profits in this industry are so high?

o             the Credit for Enhanced Oil Recovery Costs – IRC Section 43. This tax credit, also permanently written into the tax code, is available specifically for companies who use hydrocarbon-based tertiary injectant methods.

o             the Exclusion of Alternative Fuels from the Fuel Excise Tax – IRC Section 6426(d). This section further reduces the tax liability specifically for liquified petroleum gas (LPG), P-series fuels, compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied hydrogen, liquid coal, and liquid hydrocarbon from biomass.

Those are just a small number of the many tax incentives given to fossil fuel companies that have been written into the tax code as permanent provisions. You have not addressed these in your campaign platform. Do you intend to remove these from the permanent tax code?

Let’s be honest.

I come with an idea. I propose that we extend the PTC long enough for the government to remove the special incentives for fossil fuels from the tax code, thereby leveling government support for all energy sources. Or, we can agree to extend the PTC until the wind and solar industries have managed to add equivalent tax incentives to the tax code that equally benefit them. You said you wanted to create a level playing field. I’m all for it. But allowing the PTC to expire on the basis of “leveling the field for all energy sources” while the fossil fuel industry continues to enjoy their special incentives is the height of government hypocrisy.

Respectfully,



Wally Lafferty

A Sustainability Minute blogger

For more information on special tax incentives for all energy sources, see: Estimating U.S. Government Subsidies to Energy Sources: 2002-2008, by the Environmental Law Institute: http://www.elistore.org/Data/products/d19_07.pdf

Link to Mr. Lafferty's original post w/comments:

http://asustainabilityminute.com/2012/08/19/mr-romney-lets-be-honest-about-subsidies-to-renewable-energy/

And yes, I like that letter so much that I still have it at my fingertips 2-1/2 years after it was written. Because Wally Lafferty is smart AND RIGHT.

riceme wrote:

For starters, I am against all government subsidies, so this discussion is all academic. But you are incorrect. You missed something from your own source:

Quote :

A 2011 study by the consulting firm Management Information Services, Inc. (MISI)[20] estimated the total historical federal subsidies for various energy sources over the years 1950–2010. The study found that oil, natural gas, and coal received $369 billion, $121 billion, and $104 billion (2010 dollars), respectively, or 70% of total energy subsidies over that period. Oil, natural gas, and coal benefited most from percentage depletion allowances and other tax-based subsidies, but oil also benefited heavily from regulatory subsidies such as exemptions from price controls and higher-than-average rates of return allowed on oil pipelines. The MISI report found that non-hydro renewable energy (primarily wind and solar) benefited from $74 billion in federal subsidies, or 9% of the total, largely in the form of tax policy and direct federal expenditures on research and development (R&D). Nuclear power benefited from $73 billion in federal subsidies, 9% of the total, largely in the form of R&D, while hydro power received $90 billion in federal subsidies, 12% of the total.

Also, see below. This is not even close to being a remotely complete listing of the PERMANENT GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES ENJOYED BY FOSSIL FUELS:

Not exactly. The subsidy snapshot you're looking at covers a sixty year time period. Sixty years ago things like solar, wind power, and ethanol, didn't even appear on the energy production considerations except as R&D. To get a clear picture of where the subsidies are going we'd have to break it down on a year by year basis.

I will agree with you on how the subsidies need to go away and power production should be able to stand on it's own. Most of this money should be spent on R&D like I suggested earlier.

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQzUCO7rG0M

Ahh, yes, "exactly." The information you're referring to was from the link you provided, so... would you like to try again?

riceme wrote:

Ahh, yes, "exactly." The information you're referring to was from the link you provided, so... would you like to try again?

First off I never said I agreed with everything written in that link.

Explain to me why I should consider the monies spent on fossil fuels prior to renewables and green power being pushed and the subsidies that are spent on them. If the latter weren't even being considered I see no reason to count any monies spent on energy prior to that when comparing what is being spent on energy production.

Your argument is like that of a younger sibling saying that their older siblings were given so much more because they are older and have received all this money over the years. Well yes they were because you weren't around..... but we're considering the here and now and what will be doled out as an allowance.

*****SMILE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUEA5NWlQU0

Let's rewind. You misunderstood your own source. That should have been your takeaway from any one of my past three posts. Furthermore, you fail to understand that greed and government puppetry are the root causes of the issues here. The fact that fossils have been sucking the government coffers dry for almost a century only serves to further my point, not yours. If you don't understand these things, I cannot help you.

riceme wrote:

Let's rewind. You misunderstood your own source. That should have been your takeaway from any one of my past three posts. Furthermore, you fail to understand that greed and government puppetry are the root causes of the issues here. The fact that fossils have been sucking the government coffers dry for almost a century only serves to further my point, not yours. If you don't understand these things, I cannot help you.

I pointed out what part of the source I wished to quote and that was that renewable energy and clean energy have the bulk of the subsidies directed at them at this time... Nothing more. I understand the greed of the wealthy all to well and how they feel they need special compensation to keep them ahead of others. Yes fossil fuels have been sucking at the government coffers for nearly a century but I see no reason to bend over backwards to supply outrageous amounts of money to renewable energy and clean energy because of it since all it is going to do is line their pockets further. If you don't understand these things, I cannot help you.

*****CHUCKLE*****

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diOuUYcenW0